DeWitt Brinson

Poetry Is Dead

Abraham Lincoln, the poem, set the slaves free and did that really well. George Washington, also a poem, set America free from the wicky King of England, King Fancy-pants. Saint George and Mister Lincoln were nice to each other and never used swear words. Because they were poems, they are both now dead.

People on the road to death are on the path of poetry. Gandhi is an important dead poem. He freed the Indians and South Africans from the King of England, King Fancy-pants Jr. He knew he’d be a poem and wrapped himself in a sheet of paper from the get-go. He was starving, a lot.

See, poetry is so freeing. Poetry is the opposite of kings and their royal family. Poetry is a dead thing.

One day Desmond Tutu will be a great poem because he freed South Africans from Apartheid. Obama will be the first Black Mr. President poem. Obama freed us from having only white presidents but try as he might, he could not free us from having only male presidents--he left that for some other poem. Look in the mirror, is that poem you?

Albert Einstein won a poetry prize for having the best hair. Einstein is already a poem but he’s not a well understood one. Most poems are actually not well understood.

It doesn’t matter if their poem is understood. People don’t matter as much after they are dead but they mean more.

It is important to know that poetry is dead. It is even more important to know it is dying.

Somewhere out there is a new poem dying.

Look in the mirror, is that you?

DeWitt Brinson demands you read "Kindergarten pupils tell us how to cook a turkey" by he kindergarten students in the classes of Miss Briskey and Mrs. Geise from The Daily Item. Miss Briskey and Mrs. Geise are teaching the poetry movement of 2025.

(For December at Everyday Genius, contributors were asked to recommend something elsewhere on the Internet.)